“Just like that bluebird”
Out now is the January/February 2016 edition of Rolling Stone France (RSFR), which has a one and a half page review of the ★ album and an eight-page feature, not to mention a Bowie front cover.
Both the review and the feature were written by Paola Genone, music critic (musicologist) at the French national magazine Madame Figaro and a regular writer for RSFR.
In the feature Paola interviews Donny McCaslin, Ben Monder, Mark Giuliana, Jason Linder, Tim Lefebvre and Ryan Keberle about their work on the album.
The ★ album has been given a five stars out of five review and it is the RSFR album of the month (actually for Christmas, Rolling Stone France covers two months, until February 15).
According to Paola the title of the review, “L’homme qui marche”, is a reference to Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti’s sculptures “L’homme qui marche” (“The Walking Man”).
Paola has kindly translated a portion of the review for us…
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“Bowie’s astonishing new work comes from the very border between jazz and electronica.
David Bowie knows how to write music for everybody, but he does it like nobody else…
In a bold move, ★ is a breath-taking live performance and a culmination of a lifetime of experimentation. Forty-two minutes and seven pieces meet at the crossroad of jazz, electronic improvisation, Kurt Weill’s musical theatre and rock’n’roll. Listening to “Blackstar” or to the lunar reprisal of “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)”, to Bowie’s cantato and all its modulations, to these sax and flute improvisations reminiscent of Ornette Coleman, one’s mind wonders : suddenly, one imagines Bowie and the musicians of ★ playing these songs at the MoMA, against the background of Pollock’s dripping canvases or Picasso’s sculpture Goat’s Skull, Bottle and Candle.
With ”Lazarus”, like a jazz musician reinventing a standard, David Bowie delivers a heart wrenching version, with deliberate urgency. The word « freedom » and the image of this « bluebird » that he sings about, reminds us of the Charles Bukowski poem, “Bluebird” : “There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out. But I’m too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes”.
With an ethereal voice, he tackles “Girl Loves Me”, incarnating at once the awkward fragility and the solid determination of Alberto Giacometti’s sculpture « Man Walking »…
The constraint of language falls apart when confronted by the encyclopaedic sonic, visual and literary scale of Bowie, the key to which we have searched so long and so fruitlessly for..”
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Read the full review online here.
#Blackstar #imablackstar #BlackstarAlbum #RollingStoneBowie #RollingStoneFrance